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Monday, December 23, 2013

Patagonia: Beta Report

In mid- to late-November, Derek DeBruin, Kevin Shon, and
Karsten Delap traveled to Argentina with the intent to attempt a new line on
the east face (Argentine side) of Cerro San Lorenzo in central Patagonia.The weather proved to be problematic, preventing
an attempt, but we did get to do some other climbing as well as gather valuable
beta.The details are below.

East Face of Cerro San Lorenzo, mid-November 2013.

Travel to Argetina

Our party flew in to Ezeiza International Airport in
Buenos Aires.Previous experience has
shown LAN to be one of the most reliable and on-time operations.This trip proved no different.

Travel within
Argentina

From Buenos Aires, there are two options for air
travel.The southern option is to fly to
Rio Gallegos; however, the flight scheduled is somewhat limited.From there, you could rent a vehicle of
arrange for transportation to the trailhead.Rolando Garibotti, curator of pataclimb.com was very helpful in this
regard.

The northern option is to travel to Bariloche, where a
car rental or a ride down Routa Nacional 40 goes to the trailhead.Rental cars are available at the airport in
Bariloche and rides for hire to points in Patagonia are available as well.

It is also possible to rent a car in Buenos Aires (rates
are cheaper in el centro than at the
airport) and drive directly to the trailhead.Depending on the number in the group and the rate and rental period,
this could save a fair amount of money.However, that money comes at the cost of time.It is probably a better plan to fly to
Bariloche or Rio Gallegos.We rented a
vehicle and traveled from the north.

Travel to and inside
Parque Nacional Perito Moreno

Once in the country, whether coming from the north or
south, the goal is ultimately to get to RN 40 which runs the length of
Patagonia to the north and south along the western edge of Argentina.We traveled along RN 40 to Routa Provincial
37, which marks the entrance to Parque Nacional Perito Moreno.This intersection seemed to be indicated on
the map as Las Horquetas, though there was literally nothing there save a
gravel road and a sign.

Also noteworthy is that the last reliable places to
purchase gasoline (nafta) are some
distance from the park entrance.To the
north is the town of Perito Moreno and to the south is Gobernador
Gregores.A jerry can for extra gasoline
is not strictly necessary but is not a bad idea.For example, while driving from the north, we
stopped for gas in the hamlet of Bajo Caracoles (the last place to stop to the
north of the park) only to discover that the whole town had run out of gas the
preceding day and they did not know when the next shipment would arrive.

After turning onto RP 37, there are two possible
locations to get gas on the way to the park entrance.The first is Estancia Sierra Andia about 10
or 15km into the park and located on the left.(It’s the only building on your left and therefore hard to miss.)Estancia Menelik is some 40 or more
kilometers into the park and is on the right.These places may or may not have gas and as they are private ranches, the
care-takers may or may not be home to sell it.If they are there, the price for gas was about double that elsewhere
when we purchased it.

Beyond these two estancias
lies the park entrance.As of November
2013, the operating hours were 9:00am to 9:00pm and the park was closed May to
August.We arrived after hours and so
camped just inside the entrance near the ranger station.Future climbers should respect the
registration requirement and be sure to register with the ranger during
operating hours before heading to the trailhead.He was quite friendly and also familiar with
climbers.He was a good source of beta,
internet, weather forecasts, and bathrooms.

Entrance and ranger station of Parque Nacional Perito Moreno.

Past the entrance lies Estancia La Oriental on the
right.We did not stop here, but they
are supposed to offer lodging of some kind.The gravel road dead ended at Estancia El Rincon, donated to the park in
May 2013.It was a small museum staffed
by the park.The rangers there allowed
us to use a small side shed as a staging area for final packing.

La estancia El Rincon

From El Rincon, a small gravel and dirt road led us north
to the park property line.Beyond the
park property, the road became progressively less-friendly, featuring sand
hills, rutted dirt, increasingly large rocks, and stream crossings.A 4x4 vehicle with good clearance would have
been welcome (the Toyota Hilux and similar vehicles are a popular choice).That being said, our 2WD Ford Ecosport
handled quite admirably.

Creek crossing in the Ecosport.

Eventually, this road ended before a major stream
crossing.We parked there, though
carefully selected our spot in case of rising water levels/flooding.More than likely, no one else would be
parking there at that time of year, so we felt comfortable leaving some items
in the vehicle (excess equipment, a food cache, etc.)

Approaching Cerro
San Lorenzo via Rio Lacteo

There are two principle ways to approach Cerro San
Lorenzo from the Argentine side.The
northeast aspects of the peak are best approached via Routa Provincial 39 and
the Rio Oro valley to the north.For the
East Ridge (the “South African Route”) and all points south, the approach via
RP 37, Parque Nacional Perito Moreno, and the Rio Lacteo valley to the east and
south is the best approach.

From the parking area noted above, we crossed the stream,
a mandatory wet crossing.We continued
following the road bed until it led us to a view of Rio Lacteo.From there are two options.The first is to stay high on the intermittent
trail on the river left/east bank.This
path is the “established” trail, which we followed on our return leg.However, in the spring, the thawing soil can
create exceptionally marshy conditions in the grassy pastures.Consequently, boots and gaiters would not be
ill-advised as the suction of the ankle-deep mud is quite severe in
places.Alternately, future parties
should be prepared for wet shoes and wet feet.

Hiking up Rio Lacteo valley (courtesy of Kevin Shon).

The second option is to drop down low into the Rio Lacteo
drainage, which we did on our approach.The channel is typically quite braided with numerous gravel bars,
streams, etc.Most crossings, if even
required, were shallow or dry, though there were a couple wet crossings.

Ultimately, we followed the Rio Lacteo valley on the east
side of Cerro Penitentes until we reached the confluence of the north and west
forks of Rio Lacteo.This brought us to
the hut of Puesto San Lorenzo, located on the east/river left bank.The hut is fairly weather proof and features
a wood-burning stove with griddle, a table, hanging space, and dirt
floors.There is also a separate latrine
and a wind wall for tents.Water is
easily accessed just down a steep slope to the river.A lightweight day hike should get most
parties to the hut in 3 hours.With
expedition loads, we found our travel time to be more like 6 hours.

Puesto San Lorenzo.

From the Puesto, we made one additional wet river
crossing over the north fork of Rio Lacteo, though it’s rumored that there is
occasionally a bridge there.After the
crossing, we followed the north/river left bank of the west fork or Rio Lacteo
where an occasional trail led up to the boulder field on the shelf above.Across the boulder field, we continued
westward and upward as the Rio Lacteo turned into Class V whitewater.

The next bench above yielded a braided section of the Rio
Lacteo just downstream of Lago Lacteo, the lake formed at the head of Glaciar
Lacteo, which feeds Rio Lacteo.Crossing
the river here at the braided channel through mostly dry crossings, we
continued along the south/river right side of the river as the north side of
the lake proved impassable (unless one enjoys 80o dirt gulies).

Once on the south side of the river, we continued onto
the shoulder skirting the south side of Rio Lacteo and the north side of Cerro
Penitentes.We stayed high from there,
well above the lake, and continued traversing westward through the talus,
scree, and boulders.Eventually, this
bench turns the corner of Cerro Penitentes where it is possible to follow the
line of weakness to the dirty glacier below.During our November 2013 visit, the glacier was quite dirty and
obviously in recession.Lago Lacteo was
approximately twice as long at that time as the size represented on the 2007
Aoneker map.

Lago Lacteo with East Face of San Lorenzo in whiteout behind.

The east face of Cerro San Lorenzo is accessible from
this glacier.Future parties should not
that in springtime hanging glaciers, potential wind-loaded slabs, and
bergschrunds guarded much of the rock and ice higher on the face.Also, the lip above that runs along the south
ridge was heavily corniced and appeared to be glaciated as well.

Climbing Season

While January typically offers some of the best weather
windows in Patagonia, previous parties had reported San Lorenzo suffers from
considerable rock fall at that time of year.For us, November seemed to offer the best compromise for weather, snow
conditions, and rockfall hazard.

Supplies

Specialty foods such as bars, gels, and freeze-dried
meals are difficult to find in Argentina; we brought ours with us.However, whole foods were much easier to come
by and were available at supermarkets or specialty shops in major towns and
cities.To the north, canister fuel was
available in places like Bariloche, Bolson, and Esquel, but we did not need to
purchase fuel any further south than that and so do not have information on
where to obtain it.White gas was
available at paint stores and is referred to as solvente calefacción.

Weather
Forecasting

For forecasting, we referred to pataclimb.com’s excellent
pages on weather forecasting and sending satellite phone text message weather
reports.We also regularly referred to
the NOAA forecast available at http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/READYcmet.php (Cerro
San Lorenzo’s main summit is located at -47.59, -72.31).However, south of the city of Perito Moreno,
the NOAA page generally did not load.Locals tend to use windguru.com instead; this presents essentially the
same information but in different units.

Puesto San Lorenzo seemed to collect slightly cooler air
than either of the confluential valleys and slightly more wind.When we were camped near Cerro San Lorenzo,
much of the weather seemed to break into the valley north of Lago Lacteo,
regardless of wind direction.Further,
severe weather tended to decrease in intensity as it made its way down the
valleys to the east, tending to decrease in severity near the head of Lago
Lacteo.

Ten meter wind speeds of about 15 knots were climbable to
about 2000 meters of elevation.Wind
speeds increased with altitude though, and a 10m speed of 15kt easily equated
to 60mph winds and gusts strong enough to knock a climber off balance.It would probably be best to limit climbing
days on Cerro San Lorenzo to wind speeds of less than 10kt.Further, even on days with single-digit wind
speeds, the summits of San Lorenzo were often shrouded in blown snow,
indicating high winds aloft regardless.